The “Great Vacation” narrative holds that unemployment insurance (UI) benefits — in particular, the added weeks of benefits for the long-term unemployed that Congress has funded in the past few years — have dissuaded millions of unemployed workers from taking a job. If, then, jobless workers would get off their duff (or if we would give them a good swift kick there), unemployment would plummet.

That narrative seems to be motivating the latest House UI proposal, which curtails the number of weeks of UI benefits available, would allow states to alter the fundamental social insurance nature of the program, and includes a number of “reforms” that would make it more difficult for workers who lose their jobs through no fault of their own to have access to the program (see our critique)….

A more recent analysis from Berkeley economist Jesse Rothstein finds even smaller effects [of extended UI on the unemployment rate]:

The estimates imply that UI benefit extensions raised the unemployment rate in early 2011 by only about 0.1-0.5 percentage points, much less than is implied by previous analyses.

Rothstein also found that more than half of this small increase in the unemployment rate occurred as workers receiving those added weeks of UI benefits stayed in the labor force looking for work, rather than drop out in discouragement.

When the unemployed stop looking for work, that reduces the unemployment rate (which only counts people actively looking for work), but it doesn’t help them or the economy or result in more workers having jobs….

[It] would be a serious mistake to conclude that the truth lies somewhere in the middle between the Great Vacation and Great Recession explanations — like saying that Philadelphia lies somewhere in the middle between New York City and Los Angeles. If you rely on the Great Vacation explanation, you’ve barely started your journey to understanding why unemployment is so high.

The “Great Vacation” narrative holds that unemployment insurance (UI) benefits — in particular, the added weeks of benefits for the long-term unemployed that Congress has funded in the past few years — have dissuaded millions of unemployed workers from taking a job. If, then, jobless workers would get off their duff (or if we would give them a good swift kick there), unemployment would plummet.

That narrative seems to be motivating the latest House UI proposal, which curtails the number of weeks of UI benefits available, would allow states to alter the fundamental social insurance nature of the program, and includes a number of “reforms” that would make it more difficult for workers who lose their jobs through no fault of their own to have access to the program (see our critique)….

A more recent analysis from Berkeley economist Jesse Rothstein finds even smaller effects [of extended UI on the unemployment rate]:

The estimates imply that UI benefit extensions raised the unemployment rate in early 2011 by only about 0.1-0.5 percentage points, much less than is implied by previous analyses.

Rothstein also found that more than half of this small increase in the unemployment rate occurred as workers receiving those added weeks of UI benefits stayed in the labor force looking for work, rather than drop out in discouragement.

When the unemployed stop looking for work, that reduces the unemployment rate (which only counts people actively looking for work), but it doesn’t help them or the economy or result in more workers having jobs….

[It] would be a serious mistake to conclude that the truth lies somewhere in the middle between the Great Vacation and Great Recession explanations — like saying that Philadelphia lies somewhere in the middle between New York City and Los Angeles. If you rely on the Great Vacation explanation, you’ve barely started your journey to understanding why unemployment is so high.